Walking out of my house early this morning, I was confronted by a very emotional angry old woman, who imperiously accused me of throwing out the rubbish too early and in the wrong place. Since I don’t do that, it must be my flatmates.

But what interests me, is how she knew it was my rubbish. So it turns out she’s been going through all our rubbish bags to spot the guilty perpetrator. Which is outrageous. And I told her so, in my most outraged Guardian-reading citizen manner. But she couldn’t see what she’d done wrong. At all.